Most major airlines charge a fee if you need to change your flight and it’s often an expensive business. With Southwest Airlines, however, there’s no change fees if you need to modify your plans, which is great for flexibility. Southwest is the only major airline that never charges change fees. It’s a very generous and handy policy if you need to ensure you have a flight booked, but with the peace of mind that you can change without incurring a costly fee. This is whether you’ve booked a domestic or international flight with Southwest; some major airlines charge up to $150 just to change a flight!

You’ll only pay the cost in fare difference, and that’s only if the flight you change to is more expensive. If it’s a cheaper fare, this is where it gets interesting…

If you find a cheaper flight on Southwest than the one you’ve already booked, you can change flights without penalty and you’ll also get a refund for the difference, even on award tickets. The refund for a cash ticket is in the form of credit to use on a future Southwest flight, but if you used points to purchase your flight, you’ll get a refund of points back to your account.

Even if you don’t need to change your flight but are flexible enough to be able to, you can benefit from this policy to get a cheaper fare by literally just spending a minute every day checking to see if the price has dropped.